A senior citizen having fun at an amusement park.
As promised in the last entry, Seirei no Moribito takes its turn to challenge Nodame Cantabile and snatch the Best Anime Of The Year 2007 from it. Certain people says that this is the best anime since sliced bread was created, so let’ see whether the claim is true or not.
Story:-
A wandering spear-wielding (female) warrior found herself in a sh*thole when she was asked by a desperate queen to become a bodyguard for his young son to protect him from his murderous father a.k.a. the king of the land. This is because the prince is ‘pregnant’ with a water spirit that will bring downfall to the country world. The warrior lady has to dodge royal assassins while helping the male prince to ‘give birth’ to the spirit, and that’s about it.
Contrary to the hugely simplified description above, the story is actually very well done. Set up in lush environments that remind me a lot of the Twelve Kingdoms anime I watched and reviewed last year, it started up very well until it hits some fillers right about midway of the anime’s run. Poor usage of flashbacks near the end also mars the story’s presentation. Instead of doing 2 episodes dedicated to flashbacks, the director could do by integrating them into the storyline, like the one done at the scene where the dying female warrior is hallucinating about her past while the prince is looking for help.
The ending is very well done with an ending that is different (and better) than the one I anticipated will happen. In fact, this anime has one of the better closures from all the anime I have seen recently.
FOUND! The Madeleine McCann kidnapper in action, with her latest conquest!
Character Design:-
The design is taken straight outside the book of the aforementioned Twelve Kingdoms. The characters here are more realistic, BLACK HAIR (very important) is common (as it should in a medieval setting in Japan) and no overly large eyes. In a way, it is similar to Nodame Cantabile.
Voice acting:-
Unfortunately for the anime, the quality of the voice acting is mixed at best. Some of the voices are great, especially for Balsa and Tohya while some of the other characters such as the medicine man and his master Torogai are average at best.
Music:-
The OST is superb, comparable to the one in Nodame Cantabile (a music-related anime) but why oh why the OP/ED themes are nowhere near the quality of the OST?
You won’t be disappointed with the action scenes in this anime. Here you got a Starship Troopers-esque imitator in action.
Animation/Direction:-
The animation in this anime is just as good as the one in Heroic Age, if not better. This is definitely a plus point of the anime. Choreography of the fighting scenes is of the high quality, up there with Claymore, and my only complaint is that there is not enough of it to go around. The directing can be frustrating though; sometimes it can be excellent with creative usage of camera angles and ability to ensure a smooth storyline while it can be bad in other parts of the story by inopportune usage of unsuitable plot devices.
Conclusion:-
9 out of 10. Probably the nearest challenger of Nodame Cantabile as of today, but it falls just a little bit short.
TONITE, DINNR IZ U!
